


I'll dream that you're not left alone

by leigh57



Category: 24
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-22
Updated: 2011-10-22
Packaged: 2017-10-24 20:52:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/267771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leigh57/pseuds/leigh57
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This one's rough to summarize. It's a collection of Jack/Renee one-shots based on various LJ prompts. So, some stuff happens!</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll dream that you're not left alone

**Author's Note:**

> The story title is lyrics from "Freeze and Explode" by Cassettes Won't Listen.

The miniscule blurb about Sean’s execution is buried at the bottom of page C24. Janis wouldn’t have noticed had she not been home sick with a brutal cold, desperate for distraction while she blew her nose for the eight hundredth time.

She sucks her cough drop and stares at the black and white print.

Dialing the phone is a crapshoot. Renee could easily have changed her number.

“Janis?”

“Yeah. Hi. I know you don’t really. . . want to talk, but-” She clicks her pen. “They executed Sean yesterday. I thought you might want to know.”

The quiet feels like an armed grenade.

Renee’s voice is flat. “I haven’t really been watching the news. So-” Pause. “Thank you.”

“Sure.” Janis stares at the collection of sticky notes encircling her monitor. “Are you. . . okay?”

The brittle laugh Renee expels in response is hollow. “Depends on your definition.”

“We miss you,” Janis blurts, wishing she hadn’t when an even more oppressive silence descends.

Then Renee surprises her by adding, her voice crackly, “I miss you, too. I miss. . . everything.”

She has no evidence to back up her statement, but Janis replies with surprising conviction. “You’ll get it back.”

_________________________

Without warning, the flashlight bulb emitted a faint pop and extinguished itself. _Shit_. Jack crouched in the now pitch-dark crawlspace, knees aching. In the room below, he could hear the clipped businesslike voices of the four men currently looking for him.

He was fucked.

 _Think. Think, goddammit. Options._

But before he could even start, he noticed a dim beam of light bouncing off the aluminum near the corner he had turned a few minutes before. Silently, he drew his weapon, clicking off the safety as quietly as possible. Sweat trickled into his mouth.

“Jack.” The whisper echoed faintly off the metal. “It’s Renee. Don’t shoot me.”

He relaxed his shoulders and replaced the safety. “How the hell did you find me?”

The shadows from her flashlight filtered over her face. “It wasn’t easy. That was one of your more impressive ditching attempts.” She pulled her pack off her shoulder. “But you should give it up because I’m too smart for you. You’re lucky I know how you think.”

He said nothing, fighting not to acknowledge the relief that saturated him.

“So are we doing this or what?” she asked, extending a working flashlight.

He took it, catching her fingers in his for a few seconds (soft and startlingly warm in his) before releasing her hand.

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

_________________________

He was exhausted from running. The freezing air sliced his chest each time he inhaled.

His voice was low, almost a whisper as he spoke into the comm. “Chloe. Are you _sure_ there’s only one heat signature? If I call her and someone else is in there, she’s dead.”

“I’ve checked five times, Jack. There’s another body in there, but its temperature is approximately forty degrees. The guy’s dead.”

“What about hers?”

Chloe cleared her throat. “You don’t wanna know. Just get in there.”

“Renee?” Projecting his voice in a situation like this went against every last instinct, but he didn’t have a choice. “It’s me. If you’re in there, yell.”

Quiet. What must have been three or four seconds felt more like a decade. Finally. . . “Jack?”

His heart accelerated. “Yeah. I have to shoot the door open. If I aim at the lock, will I hit you?”

Another pause. “No. But try to keep it a little left.”

He adjusted his aim and fired repeatedly, blasting at the door until it fell open a few inches. Holding the automatic in front of him, he pushed the door open.

Renee sat on a metal chair a little to his right, her hands secured behind her. It couldn’t have been more than thirty-five degrees in the warehouse, but she was wearing only a blue t-shirt and a pair of plaid boxer shorts. She shook violently, teeth chattering, but even when he engaged the safety and put the weapon on the floor, she said nothing.

A body lay a few yards away from her chair, surrounded by several pools of congealed blood. Gunshot wounds.

He approached her slowly. Rage rushed through him, tangible as the backpack strap that cut into his shoulder. He counted, concentrated on breathing, trying to evaluate the situation without letting her know how badly he wanted to kill someone.

She was whiter than he’d ever seen her. Multiple cuts and bruises created a horrible archipelago on her face. He could discern a few cigarette burns on her arms and the part of her chest he could see.

 _Good god._ He needed to look at her torso, but he was terrified of what she might do if he tried to lift her shirt.

Walking a few steps closer, he said quietly, “I’m gonna see if I can get your hands free, okay?”

“Yeah. Thank you.” Her voice was flat, unusually formal.

He walked behind the chair and looked at the cuffs, cranked so tightly they’d made hamburger of her wrists. He reached into his backpack and pulled out the pliers, savoring the sound of snapping metal. She gasped when he took them off. He knew she’d tried to stifle even that, and nausea twisted his stomach.

He yanked out the thick polartec blanket he’d forced into the pack. “I need to warm you up, immediately, but-”

“It’s okay, Jack. I know you have to look.”

“Okay.”

He put the backpack on the floor and, as slowly and gently as he could, pulled up the t-shirt.

The nausea returned, amplified. Bruises, burns, cuts. Dried blood in random patterns. He touched her ribs, pressing to check for possible fractures. Despite his desire to go outside and vomit or rip the fingers off the motherfuckers who had done this, he kept his voice level. “Does it hurt to breathe? Do you think they cracked ribs?”

She swallowed, but this time when she spoke, the tones went up and down, rising and falling the way he remembered. “No. They knew what they were doing, wanted to make sure I could still talk.” Her eyes met his for the first time since he’d busted through the door. “I didn’t.”

“I know.”

“Good.”

“Okay.” He lowered her shirt. “Can you lean forward so I can wrap you up?”

She complied without speaking.

He tucked the huge blanket around her. Her feet were bare. He pulled off his own shoes, yanking his socks off and trying not to think about the chill of her skin when he slid them over her feet and up to her ankles.

When he’d tucked in the blanket as best he knew how, he spoke quietly into the comm. “Chloe? We need a chopper here _now_. She has hypothermia and fuck knows what else. How soon?”

“On it. They’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Thank you.”

He looked back towards Renee, still hoping the violent electric red anger that showed up in almost uncontrollable flashes wasn’t apparent on his face. “What can I do?”

Something that might have been a smile with a little more work moved the edges of her mouth. “Well I’m fucking freezing.”

“Yeah.” He glanced around. “Let’s move to the couch over here and I’ll warm you up.” He paused. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you don’t want anybody touching you, but it’s the only way . . .”

“You’re not anybody,” she interjected, as if this were the most self-evident thing in the world. “Jack I can’t . . . _goddammit_."

“What?” He stepped closer.

“You’re gonna have to help me walk. They messed up the muscles in my legs.” She drew the blanket closer, a protective covering.

Before he could self-edit, he said, “Let me pick you up. You cringe every time you try to move.”

After a beat she answered, “Okay. But don’t get . . . used to it or something.”

He wanted to laugh.

She was still there.

He lifted her, trying to keep as little friction as possible between her body and his, locking his teeth when he heard her suck in a breath.

On the couch, he rewrapped the blanket, then settled himself beside her, arm awkwardly around her shoulder, trying to hold her as much as it’s possible to hold someone when pressure anywhere elicits an unintentional gasp of pain.

After a few moments, he felt her head on his shoulder. He closed his eyes, breathing through the fresh wash of helpless rage. _If he had gone with her, if he hadn’t let her take the call . . ._

“It’s not your fault.”

He said nothing. He couldn’t accept her offer of absolution, not when he was staring at the raw skin on her wrist, when he could feel her entire body shivering against him.

Gradually, her shaking began to subside. He couldn’t hear her teeth knocking together any more, and the hand that rested next to his thigh was regaining color.

“Thank you,” she whispered, voice muffled by the blanket he’d tucked up to her neck.

“For what?” he shot back, and this time he knew she could hear the uncontrolled anger. “I didn’t get here in time.”

“You got here.”

He had no idea what to say to that, so he sat quietly, listening to the comforting sound of her breathing, until finally the whirr of chopper blades sliced the silence.

_________________________

Even through dark sunglasses, she squints, taking in the endless line of multicolored minivans stretched toward the horizon. A bead of sweat slides down her chest into her bra.

 _Lovely_.

“I brought you some-” Jack takes the fold-out chair next to her. “Whatever the fuck this is.” He extends a blue plastic cup filled with a drink, the color of which is not found in nature.

“Thanks.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize Teri’s preschool potluck would be quite this . . . domestic.”

“Grandpa! Renee! Frosted sugar cookies! You want some?” Teri hands Jack the cookies without waiting for an answer.

Then, unexpectedly, she crawls into Renee’s lap.

Renee inhales, mango shampoo and that special non-irritating detergent Kim uses.

Her perspective swivels.

She wants to flash-freeze time, sit here forever with tiny frosting handprints on her jeans, hot sticky fingers clutching her arm, Jack’s hand resting on her knee.

Perfection redefined.

_________________________

“You liked tuna fish yesterday!” Chloe exclaims in exasperation, wiping mayonnaise off her fingertips.

“That’s ‘cause Daddy made it,” Prescott mutters, fidgeting in his chair. He nibbles at the edge of an Oreo.

“What difference does that make?”

“He puts in chopped dill pickles. And a quarter teaspoon of horseradish powder.”

She twists her mouth sideways, chewing her lip. “Quarter teaspoon?”

“Yeah! He lets me help.”

Jack appears by the table, Teri hanging upside down from his forearm. “I’ll eat it. You want one of Teri’s PB and Js, Prescott? Kim doesn’t use that disgusting natural peanut butter stuff like your mom does.”

“Yeah!” the little boy yells.

He flips his granddaughter and sets her down. “Can you go ask your mom for another sandwich, sweetheart?”

When Teri vanishes in an explosion of flying blond hair and purple ribbons, Jack picks up the tuna. Stuffing a large bite into his mouth, he faces Chloe’s frown with a mischievous grin. “It’s peanut butter. Did you eat organic when you were five?”

“No.” She shoots a glance at Teri’s swing set, where Prescott is now making a precarious attempt to cross the monkey bars. “But my parents didn’t know any better!”

Jack shakes his head, sticks the remainder of the sandwich in his mouth, and walks over to throw himself into the lawn chair next to Renee’s.

Two seconds later, Kim emerges on the deck with a huge plate of sandwiches. “Come on guys! PB&J! And I bought grape soda!”

Chloe suppresses her smile as she snaps the lid back on the tuna container, making sure to depress the center and let out that last puff of air.

_________________________

He’s waiting for her at the end of her run, holding two huge ice cream cones. He licks the chocolate one. When she reaches him, sweaty and out of breath, he extends the chocolate/vanilla twist.

“This probably has five times as many calories as I just burned,” she says, grinning. “You’re gonna be sorry when my ass is so wide that it won’t fit in that green thing you love.” She sticks the cone on her tongue anyway, rotating it quickly so she can catch the drops already melting over the edge.

“Somehow I don’t think that’s gonna happen.” His eyes leave her face and wander lazily down the terrain of her body, stopping in all the predictable locations.

She flushes in spite of herself. Rolls her eyes. “Why are you here? I thought you had a meeting.”

“Yeah. They canceled at the last minute so I thought I’d walk back with you.” He pauses, looking suddenly uncertain. “If you want to be by yourself-”

“Jack.” She cuts him off. “I’ve hardly seen you for a week. Are you actually done for the day?”

He smiles. “Yeah. For once.”

“Good.”

They walk in relaxed silence. Renee’s body is so hot she can feel the first few bites of ice cream on their trajectory down her throat into her stomach. The park is buzzing with people taking advantage of the unexpected late November warmth. Runners, kids on bikes, parents wheeling strollers. To her left she can see a sprawling game of Ultimate Frisbee. Teenagers shoving and shrieking with apparently untouchable enthusiasm.

She remembers, vaguely, how it felt to be that carefree, to have no understanding of just how horrifying people can be, what cards the universe is capable of dealing. Remembering that incarnation of herself is now almost analogous to thinking of a separate person.

Jack’s phone rings. “Hi sweetheart,” he says, and those two words are all Renee needs to know that it’s Teri. He’ll be at least a few minutes, so she zones out, taking in only the untainted happiness in his tone and not the words themselves.

Teri is the only person on earth who can make him sound this way – one of the many things she’s learned over the past four months of whatever the hell they’re doing. Yet observing Jack with Teri has taught her something else, something she thought she already knew.

She was wrong.

 _Now_ she understands why it’s important to drink in perfection when it’s offered in sips, because god knows life is never going to present her with a full cup. She wonders if anybody actually gets that.

She’ll never have kids. A minivan. PTA meetings. A nine to five job. A ring. An anniversary. She’ll never go to sleep unhaunted by all the things she might have done differently, the people she might have saved had she made an alternate choice. She’ll never throw birthday parties for a bunch of six-year-olds (thank god, but still), do laundry all night, listen to the screech of a badly played violin.

She’ll never sigh and make a face at one of Larry’s jokes again.

And yet, it’s okay with her (in the cosmic sense) because she chose. And she’d do it all over again.

Every time.

What she does have is this: Jack beside her on the phone with Teri. A man so singularly focused it doesn’t really occur to him to look at other women (her only ‘competition’ is his dead wife; for some reason that doesn’t bother her). A job she adores with a ferocity only Jack understands. Phone calls at 3 a.m., just to let her know he’s okay and he’ll be back when he can. A family who loves her, despite the fact they wish she’d done everything differently. Decided to be ‘normal.’

More than anything, she has the bizarre, unasked for connection with Jack that neither of them can explain, articulate, or fight. She’s stopped trying, though it took a while.

“You okay?”

She hadn’t even heard him say goodbye to his granddaughter or click his phone shut. “What? I’m fine.”

He studies her with that unwavering concentration she used to find unnerving and now finds . . . hot. “You’re such a bad liar,” he says, but there’s laughter in his voice.

“Shut up. Let’s order in and watch an _entire_ movie.”

“You’ll fall asleep.”

“I will not.”

“Whatever you say.” He switches the ice cream to his other hand and laces his fingers with hers.

She squeezes, eyes stinging, grateful for the tiny magic she’s finally learned how to hold.

_________________________

“Jack!” She smacks his hand, which is wandering mischievously underneath the hemline of her sweatshirt, continuing upward with no sign of stopping. “The heat’s been off for six hours and god knows when that dickhead who calls himself my building manager will get it turned back on. I am _not_ getting naked with you.” She smiles into the semi-darkness, softening her words. “Go to sleep.”

He doesn’t listen. Instead, he lifts her hair so he can find that spot _just_ below her ear, the one that makes her completely crazy. He kisses her, lips closed for only a moment before she feels his tongue drawing warm, shivery circles on her skin. “I don’t _want_ to go to sleep.” His hand slips into the waistband of her yoga pants. “I haven’t seen you in ten days and I’m horny as hell.”

She laughs. “Fine! _You_ take your clothes off. I’ll give you a blow job.”

His voice drops, and she shivers again, harder this time, when he whispers directly into her ear (warm breath and vibrations she can feel in her toes), “Not that your offer doesn’t sound appealing, because it _really_ does, but that’s not what I had in mind.” He’s pulling at her pants with both hands now. “Trust me. I’ll keep you warm. You can leave your sweatshirt on.”

She wants to argue.

It’s fucking cold, she’s exhausted, and although she’s unbelievably glad he’s home, she kind of wanted to curl up and fall asleep. Save the sex for tomorrow. But his tone of voice and his lips on her neck have her all achy; she’s already too turned on to sleep. The thought crosses her mind that after five months, she shouldn’t still react to him like this. Maybe it’s the constant random separations or . . . something.

In the space of time it’s taken her to ponder this, he has her pants all the way off and is working on her underwear. Under the covers, he kisses the inside of her thighs and it feels so good that she almost rolls her eyes.

It’s not that she can’t say no. She can. She does. But it’s New Year’s Eve, they missed their party because of the unexpected snowstorm, and her body is improbably hot now.

“Need some help there?” She snickers as he struggles to extract himself from his pajama pants without letting the covers drop below his shoulders.

“Shut up. You’ll be glad you didn’t go to sleep.”

“So you keep saying. Get over here and prove it.” She’s fidgeting, warm and restless.

“I plan to.” He lowers himself over her, sliding a hand back under her shirt. This time, she leans into his fingers, arching her back and pressing her body into his rough hand as he teases her.

He keeps stroking her, fingers creating curves and angles. He leans over to kiss her lips and they part – it’s automatic. One more thing she can’t help when she’s around him. His mouth is all over hers now. Her tongue touches his, gentle for only a second before she wants more, soaking up the unique mixture of Riesling, aftershave, decaf and _him_ that she’s acutely aware she’ll never find anywhere else.

And _oh god_ his fingers are inside her, doing that _thing_ , and before she even knows what’s happening she’s breathing funny and holding a handful of the flannel sheet in her fist. “Jack.” Her voice sounds amusingly low. “Could we skip the preamble?”

“Thought you’d never ask.” He slows down, smiles as he pushes her hair off her forehead. “You’re the one who thought we should keep our pants on.”

“I changed my mind.” She reaches for him, pulling him down, holding her breath while he slides inside her, intensifying the ache with each second.

“Hey,” he breathes, strained. “Can you slow down for a minute?”

“Yeah.” She stills. “Sorry.”

He shakes his head. Kisses the edge of her mouth. “No. It’s okay. Sometimes I just want-“

“Want what?” She studies him in the faint sliver of light from the hallway.

His hands move to cup her face, and the atmosphere shifts, a tilting kaleidoscope, reshaping itself as he kisses her. Whatever they’re doing, it’s gone from getting off to . . . she can’t categorize his expression when he finally pulls back to look at her.

“I love you.” His thumb touches the edge of her mouth. “And I’m not saying that because you agreed to this even though it’s fifty degrees in here.” He leans his face against hers, his voice raw. “But you know, right?”

“Yeah.” Her throat is tight. “I know.”

She doesn’t know how long they stay that way, his hands in her hair, his face hot on hers, before finally neither of them can stand it and he begins to move. Half of her wants to tell him to speed it up, because she’s wound so tight now she can’t think clearly. But he’s got his own agenda, and the insane slowness is exquisite in its own way.

She’s not going to argue.

When she comes, she digs her fingers into his arms so fiercely she hopes she’s not hurting him. She thinks she says his name, too, but she’s not sure.

It doesn’t matter.

She _knows_ he says hers. He’s trembling by the time it’s over. It still happens, sometimes, and she’s surprised how Zen he is about it now.

For a few minutes she rests beneath him, stroking his lower back and listening to the rush of holiday traffic outside.

Eventually he rolls off of her. Kisses her chest. “See? I told you I’d warm you up. In fact-” He traces a finger over the back of her shoulder. “Are you sweating?”

“Bite me.” She grins, snuggling closer, because she feels good all over now and all she wants to do is go to sleep.

He wraps an arm over her stomach. She can hear his breathing begin to slow almost immediately.

Men.

A horn outside startles her just as she’s drifting off, and she opens her eyes to look at his face, almost relaxed for once. Her words muffled against his shoulder, she whispers, “I love you, too. But you know that.”

It’s quiet.

She hears the heat come back on.

In the dark, Jack mumbles sleepily, “Yeah, I do.”


End file.
